Though many have been contained, wildfires continue to rage throughout many parts of Russia. In a new twist to the situation, officials have confirmed that some forests that were contaminated with radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster have now burned, but it was unclear what danger the smoke from such wildfires could pose. Monitoring stations have not registered any increase in radioactivity as yet. Recent windy conditions have temporarily cleared the smoke from Moscow's skies, but it could possibly return soon. The area of burning forests in Russia is now 927 sq km (358 sq mi), down from from 1,740 sq km (676 sq m) only 24 hours ago. The economic costs of the fires are now estimated at up to 15 billion dollars. [This entry is part I of a double-issue today, part II about Pakistan is here]. Collected here are recent photographs from the Russian wildfires. [See previous entry]. (36 photos total)

Light shines through forest fire smoke near a Russian Orthodox church 30km from Moscow in Zelenaya Sloboda late on August 3, 2010. (ARTYOM KOROTAYEV/AFP/Getty Images)

A view looking down at a full water bucket suspended below a helicopter before it is released over a forest fire near the settlement of Kustarevka, Russia on August 10, 2010. (REUTERS/Denis Sinyakov) #

An image released by NASA on August 8, 2010 and taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite on August 7 shows fires burning around Moscow. Red outlines indicate actively burning fires, and multiple fires cluster east of Moscow, many of them sending their smoke right over the city. Smoke almost completely hides the land surface throughout this scene. (AFP/Getty Images/NASA Earth Observatory) #

People walk in front of St. Basil's Cathedral shrouded in smog in Moscow, August 4, 2010. Air quality levels in Moscow tumbled to an eight-year low on Wednesday as the Russian capital was blanketed in thick smoke from forest and peat fires, said Moscow's state agency for monitoring air pollution. (REUTERS/Sergei Karpukhin) #

Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, wearing headphones, sits in the cockpit of a firefighting plane in Ryazan region August 10, 2010. Putin, who has sought to burnish his action-man image and minimize political fallout from wildfires and drought, flew in a firefighting plane that dropped water on a blaze southeast of Moscow, state media reported. (REUTERS/Ria Novosti/Pool/Alexei Nikolsky) #

Natalia Solonina, 70, stands in front of charred chimneys, all that was left of several houses, after a spreading wildfire burned them to the ground as well as the entire village of Peredeltsy in Russia's Ryazan region on Saturday, Aug. 7, 2010. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) #

Valentina Kotikova, whose mother died from a stroke, reportedly because their house was burned to the ground, stands at the site of fire in the village of Peredeltsy Russia's Ryazan region on Thursday, Aug. 5, 2010. (AP Photo) #

Russian women look inside the charred carcass of a building 450km south of Moscow in Izlegoshche on August 6, 2010. The village of Izlegoshche was completely destroyed by Russia's worst ever wildfires and will not be rebuilt according to an administrative decision. (Alexey SAZONOV/AFP/Getty Images) #

A newly married couple, no name given, celebrates their wedding despite the deep layer of smog from wildfires covering the ancient Russian city of Ryazan on August 7th, 2010. (AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev) #